" The real problem with the Gladiator was that its insufficient medium altitude speed rendered almost

impossible the interception of the faster S.M.79s, and in fact during the campaign Gladiators (which lost at

least two of their numbers in the process) only shot three of these machines down."

Interesting, this was the very thing which wore swedish F19 Gladiators down when they were in air defence of northern Finland during Winter War. They needed to run extended times on full throttle in attempt to catch the soviet bombers.

Trivia: The Swedes attempted to upgrade from the Gladiator wich had become obsolete very fast.
The deal was detoured cause the outbreak of WW2, and the plane to replace the Gladiator went being the CR.42 :-o